On August 16, 1960, five weeks after Graeme Thorne went missing, his body was discovered under an overhanging ledge of rock in the scrub on a vacant block of land only fifteen yards from an occupied house in Grandview Grove, Seaforth. His hands and feet were tied with rope and a silk scarf had been knotted tightly around the neck. The body was wrapped in a checkered car rug and Graeme still wore his Scots College blazer. The lad had died of either a fractured skull or strangulation — or both.
The body was discovered by two young boys who had been aware of the bundle under the rock ledge for a couple of weeks and had imagined that it was a dead body but, unaware of the Graeme Thorne kidnapping, had never told anyone. While taking an older friend to their nearby bushland adventure "fort," the boys mentioned the bundle. The friend told his parents, who made the terrible discovery that night with a flashlight.
The main line of inquiry being pursued by police was related to a car seen near the corner on the morning Graeme disappeared. A young man came forward when the story first broke and reported seeing an iridescent blue 1955 Ford Customline at the scene of the abduction. It might have been anyone's car but police were reaching for any possible lead as they had so little to go on. Dozens of police moved into the Department of Motor Transport for the weekend and started on the daunting task of checking through 260,000 Ford index cards.
These days it would take a matter of minutes to come up with the 5,000 owners of 1955 iridescent blue Ford Customlines registered in New South Wales. For the investigators of 1960, it was going to take weeks. Then each vehicle would have to be traced and each owner located and physically questioned. It could take months.
To speed up the process police appealed numerous times through the media to members of the public to come forward if they knew of anyone with an iridescent blue Ford Customline who had been acting suspiciously.
William and Kathleen Telford of 26 Moore St., Clontarf, the suburb next to Seaforth, where Graeme Thorne's body was found, had a neighbour, Stephen Bradley, who drove that model car but he and his wife seemed such nice people that they had never bothered to contact police.
They hadn't thought any more of it even when the Bradleys moved out of their house the day that Graeme Thorne disappeared and over the following weeks representatives from finance companies came around knocking on their door and asking them if they had any idea where the Bradleys had moved.
But when Graeme Thorne's body had been found in the next suburb they had a good think about the circumstances and rang police. The Telfords told detectives that one week prior to the Thorne kidnapping Mr. Bradley had been leaving home at the unusual time of around 6 o'clock each morning. They also said that he was Hungarian and had a strong European accent.
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